23. Respectfully, my opinion of Wyden is much less than yours.

Ron Wyden working with Paul Ryan's budget is nothing short of a sellout of the first magnitude. Paul Ryan's budget is a complete disaster for seniors. It's also completely stupid in a political sense to have a senior Democratic senator supporting Ryan's budget in a big election year.

Wyden has been trading on his reputation from 20-30 years ago, which is admirable. I was one of his biggest supporters in the eighties and nineties. He was great in the Oregon legislature and always supported seniors and worked with the Oregon Gray Panthers. I live in his congressional district and happily voted for him many times and was delighted when he was elected to the US Senate.

But, sorry, this is a step too far. Increasingly, Oregon progressives are coming to the view that Wyden has sold out; he now lives in New York, which makes him something of a carpetbagger, nothing against NYC but we like our politicians to actually live here.

We don't see very much of Wyden these days. A lot of us would actively support a primary challenge but he's not up for election until 2016. Bet we see a whole lot more of him then!